Thursday, October 05, 2006

Canucks 3 - Wings 1: A Good Start

Sure, it's only Game 1 of the season, but now the Canucks are tops in the Western Conference and the Murder City Red Wings are in last place. I could get used to that.

A 3-1 win as the Canucks piled up 3 early goals and played a very conservative game overall. Welcome to the new Canucks, folks. This isn't thrilling, but I'll take a 3-1 win over a 5-4 loss.

My random ramblings:

As good as Ed Jovanovski was and Mattias Ohlund is, none of them could control a game like Nick Lidstrom does. I'm just amazed at how much Lidstrom seems to do on the ice: Control the puck, break up a play, put together an Ikea deskset. The world does really seem to circle around him a lot during the course of a game.

Kudos to Trevor Linden as he gets his 300th goal as a Vancouver Canuck. With the NHLPA Presidency off of his shoulders, he looks a bit speedier out there and more fresh. Sure, Chelios and his power-hungry bunch wants to tie Trevor down with another lawsuit, but Linden doesn't have to put up with the day-to-day BS of the union job he had for so long.

Speaking of puck control, the Sedinbots + Markus Naslund = Cycle mastery. Tell your kids to watch these 3 all year if you want to learn how to keep the puck in the offensive end.

Jiri Hudler got a whopping 12:19 of low quality ice time, including just 4 shifts in the 3rd period. I'll say it again: Hudler is not going to do anything until he gets out of Detroit. Call it the Steve Sullivan Syndrome, but teenyboppers like Hudler, Sullivan, St. Louis, and Ray Whitney just don't seem to explode until they get a real chance with a different club.

Funny how the one goal Roberto Luongo let in was a throw-the-puck-and-pray sharp-angle shot by Henrik Zetterberg. Otherwise, Luongo was teh bombz0rz.

Defenseman Brad Norton had just 2:34 of ice time all game for the Wings, but he was very noticable. I felt sorry for the guy...he really looked bad...Wade Belak bad.